Shenmue Message Board

This is Forklift Balancer. It's a game on - wait for it - Geocities. And I'll be damned if it's not keeping me from working/eating today.Read more...

We all know that video game fans can be a little... passionate. Fans of the RPG series Shenmue, though? They're straight-up insane.Read more...

Some people - who you'd think should know better - got excited last week when they learned that Sega had filed a trademark in Europe for "Shenmue III". The only problem: it wasn't actually Sega who filed it.Read more...

Announced a while back, First4Figures’ excellent statue of Shenmue’s main character looks like it jumped straight out of your old TV and into the real world. The Ryo Hazuki piece comes with a Phoenix Mirror stand and measures 12 inches tall. You can get this tribute to the classic Dreamcast game later this year for $185. Ryo Hazuki Exclusive

#toys Next year, collectible company First4Figures - who basically do nothing else but specialise in video game statues - will be paying tribute to a Dreamcast icon, Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki. More »

#forposterity Yesterday, I ran an article looking for your favorite Quicktime Events. The quicktime event, commonly just called a "QTE," is a long-derided trend in video games where players are forced to quickly match button presses to on-screen cues, usually during otherwise noninteractive cutscenes. QTEs are sort of a shortcut to shoehorn bullshitty interaction into cutscenes, and rarely feel very substantive or enjoyable. More »

#dreamcast In 1972, Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris faced off in Way of the Dragon. Here, that fight has been reimagined as a Shenmue style quick time event. More »

#sleepingdogs Since the chances of us seeing another proper Shenmue game are approximately 3720 to 1, DSimphonyHD figured the next best thing would be to try and recreate Yu Suzuki's Dreamcast adventure in Sleeping Dogs. More »

Yu Suzuki, the man behind the Shenmue series, is working on a new title called Gan! Gan! Pirates. Gan! Gan! Pirates is a mobile, social, arcade-style shooter with touch controls taking the place of bright orange, plastic guns, Andriasang translates from a Famitsu feature.

Suzuki's new title is free-to-play and features co-op and competitive play; it's set to launch on iOS and Android in September.

All right, before we go any further than that headline up there, we want everyone playing along at home to go to the kitchen and bring back one of those big cardboard cylinders of Morton's salt with the little metal flap on top.

Got it? Okay great, because you're going to need more than a grain for this one: HD versions of Shenmue 1 and 2 have been completed for more than a year and are pending release on XBLA and PSN, according to an anonymous source reporting to Gamerzines. The source goes on to say that Sega has been sitting on the remakes while it decides the fate of a potential Shenmue 3, though the source did not specify what that fate is.

Look, we're not saying that it isn't true, or that we don't want HD remakes of two of our favorite games ever, because of course we do. We just want you to be careful and not get your precious little hopes up, only to have them dashed to pieces -- your broken, mangled hearts never able to trust or love again.

A new report is claiming that Sega has been sitting on finished HD remakes of Shenmue and Shenmue II for over a year, waiting for an apt release window...

#sega After it hit an excitement jackpot with news of a re-released Jet Set Radio, Sega must be frantically digging through its Dreamcast catalogue for more games it can sell to a whole new (or, well, same but older) audience, because it's now teasing HD re-releases of Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia. More »

Shenmue III, the unfulfilled third entry in the Shenmue saga, is the game fans really want. Fans did not get that game. Instead, they got Shenmue City. Nobody wanted Shenmue Town. And now, it's dead. More »

#culturesmash Masaya Matsukaze has an impressive resume. He's voiced Teru in Death Note, Morty in Pokémon and Blues in Mega Man NT Warrior. But that's not his most famous role. More »

Yu Suzuki, creator of games like Shenmue, Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter, has been easing himself away from Sega ever since he opened his own studio, YS NET. He's now revealed that come September he'll be leaving his current job at Sega behind, remaining only as an "advisor". [Gamasutra] More »

Yu Suzuki, the living embodiment of all your favorite Sega memories, revealed in a Gamasutra interview that he is leaving his management position within the company's AM2 studio in September, though he'll remain at Sega as an advisor. He's actually been working at his own company, YS Net, since 2008, in conjunction with his continued employment at Sega.

After dropping the news of his departure, he discussed some of his previous works -- including the unreleased MMO, Shenmue Online. Suzuki described his concept for the game as "a town that players create as they enter the game and play it -- something like a multi-CPU system, with each player serving as a CPU." One player, then, would handle important drunk-Santa computations, while another would act as the hot-dog vending core.

#speakuponkotaku Today we give the Speak-Up on Kotaku podium over to commenter Ryohumar, who wants to let Sega know there is still hope for redemption in the form of Yu Suzuki and Shenmue 3. More »

#humor Will there ever be a Shenmue III? Maybe. But the long hoped for conclusion to the Shenmue saga is moot now, thanks to Sega legend Yu Suzuki revealing to Mega 64 how the story arc would have ended. Spoiler alert! More »

Famed game designer Yu Suzuki speaks at this year's GDC.

#sega Yu Suzuki, the man behind classic Sega video games Space Harrier, Out Run, Virtua Fighter and Shenmue, will be at this year's Game Developers Conference for a prestigious accolade, this year's Pioneer Award. More »

#xbox Why did Sega's beloved and ambitious Shenmue series fail to progress beyond its second game? Because Sega never really promoted one of Shenmue II's most spectacular features: underground duck racing. More »

James Mielke, formerly of 1UP, tracked down Sega legend Yu Suzuki for an interview, during which Suzuki revealed one of his ideas for the design of Shenmue 3 -- which, just to keep you from getting your hopes up, is still totally not happening. But it sounds interesting! But it's not happening.

"Shenmue 3 doesn't expand outward, but inward," Suzuki said, contrasting the expansive worlds of the original games with an emphasis on deeper interaction with the main characters, Ryo Hazuki and Shenhua. In the examples he gave, which were "not actually in the game," your choice of tea or coffee, or answers to hypothetical questions, would affect your relationship with in-game characters.

The rest of the two-part interview discusses Suzuki's past creating novel arcade games like Hang-On, the acquisition of 3D technology from Lockheed to develop Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing, and the long-lost touchscreen arcade game Psy-Phi. "I think it would be good to make it for Kinect," Suzuki mused. "Yeah, maybe I'll make that my next project, although, I should probably make the game a little simpler for the Kinect audience."

#shenmueiii Dreamcast saga Shenmue II ended on a cliffhanger. More than nine years later, fans still want closure and continue to demand a long overdue sequel to one of the most expensive games ever made. More »

#shenmuecity If you're still rooting for Sega's ambitious Shenmue series, you may, someday, have Mafia Wars and Farmville maker Zynga to thank. More »

Here's a thought experiment. Would it be worse if:
Yu Suzuki's Shenmue story continued, but in the form of a mobile game that none of us will ever play, or a new (mobile, Japanese) Shenmue game was made by Suzuki, and didn't continue the story? Both of those are kind of hellish -- the first means that we'd only be able to catch up with our pal Ryo through online summaries by fans, while the second would mean that the Shenmue story was being drawn out even more without reaching any kind of resolution.

Shenmue Town, the Japan-only mobile game announced last month, will be a "side story" to the Shenmue games, developed by Yu Suzuki's Ys Net and managed by Sunsoft. So Suzuki finally figured out a way to make more Shenmue ... and it's a "side story." There are still few details about the game: Andriasang reports that you'll start in Yokusuka, setting for the first Dreamcast game, as Ryo Hazuki. Art on the official site is all Dreamcast-era character art, with a note that "Shenmue returns" and an invitation to "Come back this winter."

#rumor A new Shenmue has been revealed. The game is headed to a Yahoo! Japan gaming site. And apparently, Sega is apparently not involved. But Shenmue's creator is. More »

Yahoo Japan and social cell phone game developer Mobagetown recently partnered up to help strengthen the latter's projects. Now called Yahoo Mobage, the company recently outlined its plans for a new web portal for social games, including Persona 3 Social, a new Nobunaga's Ambition title from Tecmo Koei and, arguably the most exciting game announcement of the 21st century, a social game called Shenmue Town. Yes, that Shenmue.

Other than its winter Japanese launch window, we know next to nothing about Shenmue Town. In our heart of hearts, we imagine you mingle around crowds of other real life players, asking if anyone knows anyone who speaks Chinese, or if anyone knows where a dude can find some sailors around these parts.

#sega You might want to sit down. More »

#heavyrain Life is full of moral decisions to make, every minute of every day we are faced with choices that can affect the rest of our day or indeed, the rest of our life.  More »

#rockstar The last big Rockstar game, Grand Theft Auto IV, cost roughly US$100 million. More »